Her Crew of Miscreants
by DancingFireflies
Summary: The story of a girl and her adventures (and romances) in the wake of the magnificent Marauders. AN: I have lines from movies or other works of writing that I put in. Can you find them?
1. Her Crew of Miscreants

**- -INTRODUCTION (DON'T YOU JUST LOVE THOSE?)- -**

"So what do you think of my plan," I asked a short strawberry blonde girl walking next to me. This plan was my first act of carrying out the Marauders' wishes. So okay, my plan isn't exactly the Marauders' wishes, but it is what they would have wanted (I'm sure of it!). I am their devoted follower, and I was heartbroken when they left Hogwarts for good. Even though I am a gaping four years younger than the quartet, I know everything about James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. But later about my vast knowledge, I am presently involved in a conversation.

"I still don't think you should do this! I mean, we've just arrived, beginning of fourth year, and you are already going to get into some kind of trouble. How smart does that sound to you? I don't think you should do this. How does detention with Professor McGonagall sound to you?" Of course, I always forget that Alice tries to talk me out of every mischievous deed I attempt.

"But I have good reason! I am dedicating this inaugural trick to the famed and favorite Marauders, so there is no way you are going to stop me this time." Ha, I've got her this time. Actually, that sounded like a pretty reasonable reason.

"Well, I don't know. I suppose you may do it this time, but if you get caught…you…you could get expelled for this, you know. Wouldn't that be awful? If I let you do this, you have to promise to me that you will try as hard as you can to be _extremely_ discreet. And remember, you can always back out, I won't blame you."

"But I really want to do it!" She did he famous 'Okay' look and so I said, "Oh and that is why I love you so much!" Yes! No one can stop me now!

"Now to find my crew of miscreants. Where shall I begin my great search?"

"Well these unlucky people you find must be as crazy as you, if they even exist at this school."

"Are you kidding? A school…full of _magic_ and you're telling me no one's crazy?"

"Well, how about…" Alice thought for a moment until a light bulb lighted above her brain-infested head. "Me!"

"You? You're the one that tried to talk me out of it, remember?"

"Well yes, but who better to make sure you don't get into any trouble than me?" She waited hopefully. "And…I'm your best friend? Yes! How does that sound, friend-ole-buddy-ole-pal?"

"I don't know, you could use a bit more evil genius in you, but I have hope for you yet." She squealed.

"_This is going to be fun!"_

**CHAPTER 1:** Crew of Miscreants

So we had the conversation and we eventually got our stuff unpacked in our rooms and went off to bed. I listened to her silent snoring while I began to brood over what precisely we were going to do. You see, I hadn't exactly told her what the plan was, but I didn't tell here what it wasn't either. All night I tried to come up with an idea that could in some way be as great as all of the Marauders' plans were. I came up with a few ideas, but none were very good. Although I may look like a carefree soul on the outside (which I am in some ways), I am an extreme perfectionist and I _have_ to have my way.

Because of all this brooding, the next morning I sat thinking in the Great Hall and nearly fell into my burbleberry toast.

"Danielle?" Alice began, "Danielle! Wake up for goodness' sake; we have our first classes today and you wouldn't want to make a bad impression, now would you?" Sweet little Alice, always making me try. I'm impressed how long she's persisted without giving up.

Shaking the sleep off of me, I responded, "No, of course not. Oh…speaking of which, have we gotten our schedules yet?"

"Yeah, I've got both of ours. We have charms first with Professor Flitwick. I wonder if we'll simply review or learn a new spell." She started speaking about school, so I nearly tuned out. Apparently, she saw this and spoke in a louder tone than before. "I'd personally like to review because I still can't quite remember how to do those last charms he taught us. Can you?"

"Do you honestly expect me to remember something like that?" I joked. And then I said to myself as I put my chin on my hand, "Ha, school: where do they think up these crazy ideas?"

"I suppose you're right. The only charm," again the charms, "you would remember is _'Wingardium Leviosa_._'_"

"Oh yeah! I nearly forgot! Whatever could I do without you?" And with that he smacked her forehead. "I please you so much don't I?"

"It never gets old," she laughed. "So about this Marauder business…would you like to tell me what this oh-so-great plan of yours is? I'd like to know so that we can get this whole trouble-making business over with. I'm not thoroughly comfortable with it." At her first mention of the 'Marauder business' I once again sat brooding because I hadn't come to a conclusion quite yet. I wasn't answering her question and this, obviously, perturbed her. "Well?"

"Oh right. Sorry, I couldn't hear you." I heard her mutter something along the lines of 'Utter surprise.' "What were you saying?"

"What's the prank?"

"Uh," I made something up, "Something to do with Filch, they didn't like him that much. Well, now that I think of it, no one really does, but who could blame them? Any suggestions in particular?"

"How 'bout we raid his office?"

"What good would that do? He probably just has cat beds and dust collecting on the table tops. I don't see anything in it for us."

"You seem to be forgetting that he confiscates miscellaneous items. Maybe there's something worth some value in there. Perhaps…" she paused, "something from the Marauders?"

"Oh you've got to be mad to think that they would simply let Filch take something of theirs! They were so much smarter than him that that would be an utter impossibility."

"Well you never know! Nobody's perfect, now are they? Besides, if there's nothing of value in there worth the trip, we could always leave some booby traps or something of that nature."

"Well, I suppose you're right." That would have been the best idea I came up with. "So when shall we do it? We've got classes all week and we're most likely going to have a ton of homework because it's the first week of school. You know how during the first week of school all the teachers try to terrify us and end up giving us a butt-load of work to do."

"I think the weekend will work fine. Wait, don't we go to Hogsmeade on the first weekend? If we did, we'd have to stay to be able to raid his office and that would make us suspects."

"No, I think we go on the fourth or fifth weekend after school starts."

"Then good, all of the school will be…"

"I think we should start heading towards Charms."

"But we've still got ten minutes! It only takes two to get there."

"Well we don't want to be late now do we?" Of course we don't want to be late. What would we be then, normal?

"Welcome, class! I trust you had a restful summer," Flitwick began in his usual high-pitched voice. The class replied a dull 'Yes, Professor Flitwick' in unison.

"Good, because we have to get down to business and work! work! work!" I groaned and looked beside me at Alice, but she was taking notes. What of, I wonder?

Flitwick continued, "This year, we aren't going to review last year because we have so much material to learn. Get out your wands and parchment; we're taking notes!" And with that, the work-filled year of school magic began. (Though I must admit, it feels good not having to do everything on my own.)

After Charms, we started heading toward Divinity when a boy, a bit older than us. walked up to us. He seemed oddly cheerful for the first week of school.

"Hello," he said quite confidently. "I don't mean to intrude, but I accidentally overheard you during breakfast this morning." When we glared at him he continued.

"Don't worry about me, I won't tell a soul. Actually, I'd like to join you. You see, I'm a big fan of the Marauders as well and feel as if I may have some knowledge to impart."

We paused a second with misunderstanding eyebrows. "Well who are you?" we both asked.

"Oh right, sorry. Where are my manners? The name is Jeremy Evans, nice to meet you," we shook hands. "I am a fifth year Gryffindor and I have nothing I'd rather do."

"Evans? As in Lily Evans?"

"No, as in _Jeremy_ Evans but I'm related to her, yes. She's my cousin. Well, it makes sense that you wouldn't have heard of me seeing as she doesn't talk about me that often." He stood there with a pleasing expression.

Referring back to his offer to join our troupe of vagabonds, I replied, "I suppose we could use you," I said, brushing my index finger and thumb where a beard would be if I was a man. "But you must swear not to tell anyone. If you swear, Welcome to the Club! And if you do tell, it's _our_ word against yours and a curse will make you forget about us, understood?" I tried saying that with the sweetest face possible while uttering a threat. If you've tried it, it isn't as easy as it's made out to be.

"Of course! I tell no one, and I shall keep my memory and all of our words will become one. How's that?"

"That's the dandiest decree ever," sarcasm is also my friend. "This is Alice, my best a friend, a Gryffindor fourth year. I am her fellow Gryffindor fourth year and my name is Danielle."

"Danielle," he looked at me, "Alice," and at her. "Hi!"

"Right now, we are due at Divinity, the wretched class. So meet us at the dinner table tonight and bring anything mildly useful. Plans are to be made!" I sound like a leader, don't I? Wow, this is going to be fun.

"Yes ma'am," and with that he saluted and said in a more casual tone, "See you then." He walked off, a grin on his face. I was wondering why in the world he would be smiling when Alice interrupted my thoughts.

"That's got to be some kind of odd: a guy like that walking up to us out of the blue. You'd think he'd be off playing a game of Wizard's Chess with his cronies. I've never seen him before; I wonder how he overheard us. I thought we were talking quietly." I was just standing there watching his toned soccer figure walking away, not caring how or why he wanted to join us.

In a dreamy state, I replied, "And so the mystery of Jeremy Evans begins…"


	2. Dream Sliding or Not?

**CHAPTER 2:** Dream Sliding or Not?

After Herbology, our last class of the day, we started heading towards the Great Hall. I was thinking of the savory chicken and delectable pies I was about to indulge myself in when I instantly thought of Basil.

"Hey Alice, will you go on to the Great Hall and meet Jeremy? Give me a few minutes—I'll be right down. I just need to feed Basil some food. Poor cat, I haven't fed him since we got here. Do you need anything?"

"Let's see…I suppose I could use some parchment. Would you bring me my box? I think I'll get started on a bit of homework; I'm not incredibly hungry today."

"Then I'll see you in a few."

I walked up to the stairs and got to the Fat Lady. It was just my luck that right then she was doing her solo opera. As you can imagine, she wasn't very good so I said, 'Peeling Banana Trees.' It wasn't one of her most ingenious passwords, but it did work.

I entered the common room, and there I saw Basil ready to pounce on an innocent mouse in the corner behind the hat rack.

"Basil!" He glanced up giving the unfortunate rodent enough time to flee. "What have I told you about mice?" I picked him up and continued, "It's okay to get the Death Eaters, but NOT the Mouse Eaters." He looked at me pathetically and meowed. "I know, I know. But I'm getting your food right now so it doesn't really matter now does it?" I said '_Accio,_' and his chewed up green bowl scooted across the carpet to my feet. Without need to say, he indulged himself immediately.

As soon as I saw to it that he was taken care of, I walked over to the lush red couch right in front of the blazing fireplace. I half**-**threw, half**-**plopped myself down on it. I leaned my head back and began thinking aloud to myself (as I often do when no one else is in the room).

"Ah, and if only this could happen more often: a large comfy sofa all to myself, my cat satisfying his hunger, a large fire crackling and lulling me to sleep…"

"…This is the life." Wow, I'm getting good at this whole thinking and talking at the same time thing. I thought that, but I don't really remember saying it. Wait, did I say it? I blinked open my eyes in realization that it wasn't me that had that…that soft voice, that soothing tone that was so smooth and comforting and sexy and his**--**(I better stop now or else we'll get nowhere)…

I finally asked, "Hello?" My voice had a slight shake in it, undetectable except to me. "Who's there?" I leaned up, now fully aware. A shadowed figure stepped forward. It was a man or a boy**--**I couldn't tell. He had a slim figure, robe, books.

"Hey," came the calm voice.

"Oh" How relieved I was. "Jeremy! Hi, I didn't hear you come in. Why are you up here, anyway? I thought we were supposed to meet you downstairs."

"Yeah I looked in the Great Hall for you and you weren't there, so I decided I'd come see if you were up here. Well, you were. So now that I've found you I think I'll just sit here and rest for a minute. It's been a bit of a hectic day, if I do say so myself," he proclaimed as he stood there with a little smirk on the corner of his mouth.

"Oh, well, um…would you like to join me? I'm waiting for my cat, Basil," and I motioned toward him, "to finish eating. He has to be fed the dry, processed prey that I buy him or else he'll decimate the entire rodent population of Hogwarts."

"I like the name 'Basil;' there's this funny show called 'Fawlty Towers' and the main character's name is Basil. Funny coincidence."

"Actually, it's not. That's who he's named after. I'm surprised you knew about it, no one else has before you. Television isn't exactly the most popular pastime in the non-Muggle world."

"That's why I've heard of it; I _am_ from the Muggle world."

"Well, that makes sense. Lily was too. Oh right, I'm from the Muggle world." He knowingly nodded and arched his eyebrows as if he was interested. Surprisingly, he was still standing where I first saw him.

"Won't you come sit down? You're making me nervous. It will take Basil a few minutes before he's finished."

"Okay then." He put a charm on his books so that they would carry themselves to his room.

"Erm, would you mind if I proposed a particular something to do while we sit here in boredom? Well, if you don't mind that is."

"Sure, I'm up for anything. What is it?" He looked amused at my inquiry.

"Don't laugh," he nodded. "Okay, so behind me are two staircases**--**am I correct?" He nodded. "One of these staircases leads to the boys' dormitories and the other leads to the girls' if I am not mistaken."

"Yes?" he asked, the amused look still on his face.

"So what in the world happens when a _boy_," and I pointed to him, "tries to go up the stairs that lead to a girl's room?" I pointed to the stairs behind me.

He looked at me, then at the stairs, then at me, and at the stairs again. A smile crept up into his face, overcoming his mouth and his cheeks and his eyes. He leaped up, jumped at me and grabbed my hand in his. We ran and leapt over the couch and landed right in front of the staircase. He looked at me and I looked at him; we jumped up to the fifth step and, just as predicted, it turned into a slide. We slid down and crashed into the backside of the couch, but this did not faze us. We erected ourselves again and ran up about seven steps, and yet again the rigid steps metamorphosed into a slippery slant. Again we fell, and we did this over and over, each time gaining a few more steps.

During this time, Basil attempted to sneak upstairs into his bed, but because it kept turning into a plane, he could not even attempt to get all the way up into safety. I hardly recognized him for we were having so much fun that our laughter was deafening his rather loud meows.

At last, we got to about the third step from the top, but just as we got there, the slope again appeared and we went crashing down the curving staircase, holding onto each other trying not to bruise ourselves too badly by bumping into the railings.

This last attempt had us gasping for breath and me wondering if I could even move. We were still holding onto each other for dear life (even though we were safely on the floor). He looked at me, his eyes shining and asked…

"Again?" Actually, it was more like a breath that he simply shaped his lips into that word, but I got the point.

I shook my head and mimed, "Rest." If only we could rest for a minute or two, we could get back up and have fun on the slide again. Then we both started breathing sounds that resembled laughing. We just leaned back and rested for several minutes. It could have been two, it could have been twenty.

Finally, I gained my breath back and could talk with ease. I could see he had too. "You want one more run?" He had a slightly mischievous look but I didn't dare say no.

"Sure, why not?" My eyes met his, and I couldn't seem to move them; it was a similar feeling to staring at discolored carpet or sunshine on a dashboard. I couldn't help but stare.

He got out his wand, said the simple charm '_Accio,_' and his broom came out of the door and down the boys' stairs. It arrived at his side and floated until he stuck his hand out.

Keeping his gentle gaze on me (I felt so beautiful, no one had ever looked at me like that before), he put his one hand on the broom and reached the other out to me. I looked at him and his pleading eyes. My arm lifted and landed in his warm, soft hand. He stood—maintaining the eye bond—and I stood. Together we sat on the flying contraption. I would be scared ordinarily, but his skilled control of the Nimbus 1000 eased my fears. He pointed it toward the top of the stairs; we floated and I swear I could have seen clouds—everything was just fading out of view. The only thing I saw was his deep eyes.

We lit at the top of the stairs, his broom silently taking off and flying back to his room. I stared and gazed into his eyes. They were the color of the ocean's waves before a thunderstorm: dark grey with shadows of harrowed blue and a soft emerald green wake behind those blue waves. His dark brown—nearly black—hair fell out of place and into his eyes,the straight points making his eyes even more severe. His other hand took my other hand,our faces slowly coming toward each other as the minutes passed.

My heart was beating so fast and yet everything around me was moving so slow. His eyes blinked like butterfly wings in the summer wind. Somewhere distant I heard a clock ticking: dong…dong…dong…dong, the soundfading into my memory. Another blink: a door shutting and then opening revealing all of the splendors in the world; he put his hands on my waist and a shiver went up and down my spine. I no longer felt in control, he was the one in control over me. I couldn't hear myself breathing and I couldn**'**t hear him breathing. The sound of blood pumping through my veins made my ears throb with pain. At long last, he shut his eyes and lowered his head that final inch. His lips brushed mine…

I blinked my eyes, and with each blink my surroundings became less blurry. I saw a big red…thing. Ah, it was the couch. What just happened? Feeding Basil, running up the stairs…the kiss. The kiss, the kiss, whatever happened to the kiss? I looked around me, and there was a crowd of obscure people surrounding me, all shouting my name.

"Danielle! Danielle!" Could these people just shut up? I'm not deaf! But alas, they continued, "Danielle! Danielle!"

Finally, I heard a familiar voice say softly, "Danielle, are you okay?" The one time I didn't want to see Alice, she was there. "Danielle? Do you want some water?"

Then my voice came to me, but I simply nodded. I tried to sit up and look around for any sight of Jeremy, but she pushed me back down into a lying position.

"Excuse me, excuse me!" At last, Jeremy! I looked around at him, and he was pushing through the crowd, carrying a glass of water and a pack of ice. He was definitely anxious to get to me, but seemed a little leery. He knelt down on the other side of Alice and handed me the water. He gave Alice the ice pack, and she put it under my head.

"What happened to me?" I asked, hoping he would confirm what just happened between us.

"Um, you fell down the stairs." He wasn't looking directly at me or anything else. His glances were dodging around on the ground. As the story goes, I was coming down the stairs on my way to the Great Hall. Jeremy was up here to get a few things to show to me and Alice, and he saw me lying behind the couch.

Alice continued for him, "It's taken us about twenty minutes to wake you up." Jeremy was the one I was looking at, yet he wasn't looking at me. The whole time they were telling me this new story, I knew what happened, I was sure of it! Or was I?

I didn't want to ask him about it then and there because all of these people were watching. Besides, I could see thathe didn't want to talk about it either.

Even though the rest of it was a lie, one part of his little story was true; I had fainted. I recognized the cool feeling all over my body and the slight thirst for ice water. After I drank it, the rush of cold like that of a waterfall, Jeremy walked up into the dormitories.

"So are you feeling better, Danielle?" Alice asked this as the rest of the crowd went their separate ways.

"Uh," again my distant thoughts overruling, "Yeah…what time is it? Do we still have time to uh…plan? I'd really like to get it underway." Who caredabout the plan now? I wanted to see Jeremy.

"Well, we can't today. You have to go up and see Madam Pomfrey before it gets to be too late. After you do that and she okays you, we're going to have to go to bed. You missed out on supper, so I don't know what we're going to about that now. Perhaps I could get you the…" and she wandered off talking to herself trying to get me to eat something, even though I wasn't hungry (for the first time in my life).

**A/N: Yo! So it is now Chapter 2, and I know, I left you with a great cliffhanger there! (Only Zagros gets that, but ok.) Well, what will happen next? Yeah, um, I'm in for as much a surprise as you are, so let's see how that goes! Props to SlytherinGurl!**

**Ra…ok so you chose the name "See if you can guess." Well yes, I believe that now you do know if that was a significant look. And the base keeps runnin runnin and runnin runnin…Man good times. I miss them. Anyway, off track. I feel like JK when I'm writing this because I'm plotting all these side stories and the such. And then the sixth book will come out and everything will be out of whack, but that's okay! Well, I think I'm talking too much now, so…**

**Chow Mein**


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